Rumour: AMD to drop prices in April

[ShintaiDK]

rememba whin intel used to have price cuts? now they only sell one chip at each price point for each generation and it stays at that price for a year or two.

There was some pricecuts back in september due to new parts.

But with ~1 year cycles, why bother.

 

[Idontcare]

rememba whin intel used to have price cuts? now they only sell one chip at each price point for each generation and it stays at that price for a year or two.

The loss in price cuts are due to two things - releasing nodes to production only when they are fully and properly developed (no real room for in-fab maturing anymore), and launching SKUs "in volume" which reduces the supply/demand gap.

Instead of launching the 3770k with limited supplies and at a price of $550, only to slowly bring that price down to $330 as the fab capacity comes on line and supplies grow, instead of that Intel just launches the 3770k with full volumes at time-zero, and with supply like that they set prices accordingly.

Likewise with the mature node, instead of releasing a "3.3Ghz 3670K" on an immature node and then later on launching a 3.5GHz 3770k when they finally get the node up-to-snuff, they make sure the node is fully performing to spec before putting it into production. That way they get full entitlement.

It might seem like Intel is taking advantage of us, but the truth is it just means they've finally grown up and have become more like the rest of manufacturing industries around the world.

Cars, autos, trains, planes, refrigerators, air conditioners, furniture, bricks, etc etc...every other industry operates in the more mature manner in which they launch with manufacturing capabilities fully mature and the prices already stabilized because their management had properly forecast supply/demand metrics.

It is only the semiconductor industry that has taken its sweet time coming up to speed on getting its production pipeline properly managed, and we as consumers see that as stable pricing and the release of mature CPU SKUs.

 

[joshcloud9]

Tiger has i5-3570K CPU $159 AR. Come on AMD I need my chip!!!!

 

[Pilum]

Cars, autos, trains, planes, refrigerators, air conditioners, furniture, bricks, etc etc...every other industry operates in the more mature manner in which they launch with manufacturing capabilities fully mature and the prices already stabilized because their management had properly forecast supply/demand metrics.

It is only the semiconductor industry that has taken its sweet time coming up to speed on getting its production pipeline properly managed, and we as consumers see that as stable pricing and the release of mature CPU SKUs.

To be fair, the semiconductor industry is much younger than the other stated industries and just needed time to settle down. I don't think it was really different for other new industries in the pioneering phase, when you can't really predict how big the market will end up and what kind of competition you will face in 2, 5, 10 years down the road.

 

[Idontcare]

To be fair, the semiconductor industry is much younger than the other stated industries and just needed time to settle down. I don't think it was really different for other new industries in the pioneering phase, when you can't really predict how big the market will end up and what kind of competition you will face in 2, 5, 10 years down the road.

Absolutely.

And to be fair, I loved every minute of it. It was very much like the stories you heard as a kid about the lawlessness of the wild-wild-west.

It was a real thrill to know that a single decision you could make this morning as an engineer could/would have a cascading knock-on effect of increasing yields by 1% and generating an extra $10m in profits for your employer. Things were more cowboyish and off-the-hip then, and it made engineers feel like real rockstars within their professional circles.

Now things are so boiled down to a staid science, stoic and measured for pace every step of the way (see EUV ) that as an engineer you really feel like you are just another tooth on the cog, only making a difference if you fail to do your part, not allowed to make a difference that management didn't intend for you to make long before you made it :|

Sigh, but such is the price of progress. Asia isn't like that though (yet), it is still the wild-wild-west in semiconductors out there. I blame looser regulations, and ethics that are considered unseemly by western cultures